France

French Law Explained: Codes, Courts and Key Rules (2026)

By Recording Law Editorial TeamPublished July 19, 202616 min read

Key Takeaways

1France is a civil-law country. The primary authority is a numbered article in a code, such as the Code civil or the Code du travail, and the courts interpret those articles rather than building the rule case by case.
2There is no state-by-state axis. On the topics covered here French law is national, so the useful distinctions are which stage of a procedure you are at and which side you are on, not which region you live in.
3The right court depends on the topic. Employment disputes go to the conseil de prud'hommes, family matters to the juge aux affaires familiales, minor offences to the tribunal de police and mid-level offences to the tribunal correctionnel.
4France has no single profession equivalent to an American attorney. An avocat advises and litigates, a notaire handles succession, gifts and property deeds, and a commissaire de justice enforces judgments and draws up the etat des lieux.
5Two 2025 road-safety reforms raised the headline penalties. A first offence of exceeding the speed limit by 50 km/h or more became a delit on 29 December 2025, having previously been a delit only on a repeat offence, and driving at 0.8 g/L of blood alcohol or above has carried up to 3 years and 9,000 euros since 11 July 2025.
6French deadlines are short and unforgiving. A press-law defamation action must be brought within 3 months of first publication, and on 12 June 2026 the Conseil constitutionnel removed the one mechanism that could reopen that window.

France runs on written codes rather than case law, and on one national body of law rather than fifty state versions. For a reader used to American or British law that inverts two habits at once. There is no French equivalent of asking which state's rule applies, and the starting point for almost any question is a numbered article in a code rather than a leading case.

Information last verified on 19 July 2026. This hub presents general legal information, not legal advice.

Jurisdiction scope: This hub covers the law of France. It does not cover Belgium, Switzerland, Quebec, Monaco or the other French-speaking jurisdictions, whose law differs even where the vocabulary is shared. For other countries see our world recording laws and world data privacy laws hubs. For the United States see our US legal topics hub, and for other common-law countries see our United Kingdom and Canada hubs.

French law starts with the codes

French law is codified. Rather than a body of judicial decisions from which a rule is drawn, the rule is written down in advance as a numbered article inside a code, and the court's job is to apply and interpret that article. Almost every question this site covers traces back to one of a small number of codes.

Code or statute	What it governs
Code civil	Family, property, succession, contracts, civil liability, and the right to privacy and to one's image
Code du travail	Employment: dismissal, severance, working time, harassment, and the prud'hommes procedure
Code penal	Criminal offences, including the recording of private conversations and self-defence
Code de procedure penale	Criminal procedure: police custody, complaints, and the criminal record
Code de la route	Speed limits, penalty points, alcohol at the wheel, and the driving licence
Code de la consommation	Consumer guarantees, the right of withdrawal, and over-indebtedness
Loi du 29 juillet 1881	Press law, which is where defamation and insult live
Loi du 6 juillet 1989	Residential tenancy, which was never folded into a code
Loi du 6 janvier 1978	Data protection, applied alongside the GDPR by the CNIL

Citations follow a consistent pattern. A letter prefix tells you where the article comes from: L for provisions voted by Parliament, R and D for provisions made by decret. So Article L1237-11 of the Code du travail is legislation, while Article R1234-2, which sets the statutory severance formula, is regulatory. Knowing the letter tells you how easily the rule can change, because a decret can be amended without a new statute.

The consolidated text of every code sits on Legifrance, and the government's plain-language explanations for individuals sit on Service-Public.fr. Those two sites are the starting point for any French legal question, and they are the sources this site cites first.

Where the courts still decide the question

Codification does not make case law irrelevant. It changes its role. A French judgment does not bind later courts in the formal way a common-law precedent does, but a ruling from the top of the system can still change practice across the country overnight without a single word of the code being rewritten.

Three courts matter most. The Cour de cassation is the supreme court for civil and criminal matters, and its Assemblee pleniere sits for the most significant questions. The Conseil d'Etat is the supreme administrative court and rules on challenges to decrets. The Conseil constitutionnel rules on whether a provision is constitutional, including through the question prioritaire de constitutionnalite, a mechanism that lets a litigant challenge a statute already in force.

Both routes have produced significant changes recently. On 22 December 2023 the Assemblee pleniere of the Cour de cassation reversed a long-standing rule and allowed unfairly or secretly obtained evidence to be produced in civil proceedings, provided it is indispensable to the right to proof and the intrusion is strictly proportionate. On 12 June 2026 the Conseil constitutionnel struck down Article 65-2 of the 1881 press law, removing a mechanism that had allowed the short defamation limitation period to start again in certain circumstances.

There is no state-by-state axis

This is the structural difference that matters most for anyone arriving from the United States, Canada or Australia. France is a unitary state. Employment law, tenancy law, succession, road-traffic penalties and press law are set nationally, so there is no French equivalent of comparing one state's rule against another's.

Two narrow exceptions exist and neither changes the picture. Alsace-Moselle retains a handful of local rules of historical origin, and the overseas territories can operate adapted regimes. Beyond those, the questions that actually vary in France are not geographic. They are procedural, meaning which stage you have reached, and personal, meaning whether you are the employee or the employer, the tenant or the landlord.

Empty courthouse-style hallway with polished floors, tall windows and one wooden bench

Which court hears which dispute

Getting the right forum is often the first practical question, and the answer depends entirely on subject matter.

Court or office	What it handles
Conseil de prud'hommes	Disputes between an employee and an employer, including dismissal and harassment
Juge aux affaires familiales	Divorce, child support, custody and parental authority
Tribunal judiciaire	General civil matters, including succession disputes and tenancy
Tribunal de police	Contraventions, the least serious offences
Tribunal correctionnel	Delits, the middle tier of offences, including serious speeding and drink-driving
Cour d'assises	Crimes, the most serious offences
Commissaire de justice	Enforcement of judgments, the etat des lieux, and formal service of documents
Notaire	Succession, gifts, property deeds, and receiving a divorce agreement
CNIL	Data-protection complaints and enforcement

Avocat, notaire and commissaire de justice

France has no single profession that maps onto the American attorney, and using the wrong term sends people to the wrong office.

An avocat advises clients and represents them in court. A notaire is a public officer, not simply a lawyer in private practice: notaires authenticate deeds, settle successions, and handle gifts, marriage contracts and property transfers, and for some acts a notaire is legally required. A commissaire de justice, the profession created in 2022 by merging the huissier de justice and the commissaire-priseur judiciaire, enforces judgments, serves formal documents, and draws up the inventory of condition at the start and end of a tenancy.

French legal changes in 2025 and 2026

Several changes in the last two years are recent enough that older guidance still circulating online is now wrong.

Road safety. A single statute, the loi of 9 July 2025, reshaped the headline driving penalties. Driving at 0.8 g/L of blood alcohol or more has carried up to 3 years' imprisonment and a 9,000 euro fine since 11 July 2025, replacing the previous 2 years and 4,500 euros. The same reform created new offences of homicide routier and blessures routieres in the Code penal. Then, on 29 December 2025, an implementing decret extended delit status to a first offence of exceeding the speed limit by 50 km/h or more. That threshold was already a delit on a repeat offence; what changed is that a first offence is no longer a 5th-class contravention. The case is heard by the tribunal correctionnel, and confiscation of the vehicle is mandatory on a repeat offence unless the court declines to order it by a specially reasoned decision.

Defamation. On 12 June 2026 the Conseil constitutionnel declared Article 65-2 of the 1881 press law contrary to the Constitution. That article had allowed a fresh limitation period to run where a later final criminal decision cleared the person of the facts alleged against them. The abrogation took effect on publication and applies to every case not finally judged at that date, so the ordinary 3-month period now applies without that exception.

Evidence. The December 2023 reversal on secretly obtained evidence has since been applied by the chambre sociale of the Cour de cassation in employment cases, in both directions. Recordings have been admitted where no other proof was available and excluded where other evidence existed, which makes the test a real filter rather than a general permission.

Paid leave. A statute of 22 April 2024 brought French law into line with EU law by allowing paid leave to accrue during sick leave for a non-occupational illness, at 2 working days a month capped at 24 days, with retroactive effect for periods going back to December 2009.

Recording, surveillance and privacy in France

France protects private conversations through the criminal law. Article 226-1 of the Code penal makes it an offence to record or transmit words spoken privately without the consent of the speaker, punishable by up to 1 year and 45,000 euros, with consent presumed where the recording was made openly and the person was in a position to object but did not. A separate provision covers keeping or publishing such a recording, and prosecution requires the victim's complaint.

Surveillance is split between two regimes that are easy to confuse. Filming a public space is videoprotection and requires authorisation from the prefecture. Filming a private space is videosurveillance, which needs no prefectural authorisation. What governs it instead depends on who is filming. A business filming areas its staff use falls under data-protection law and so under the CNIL. A private individual filming their own home is generally outside data-protection law altogether, under the household exemption, and is limited instead by the criminal protection of private life in Article 226-1 of the Code penal and the right to privacy in Article 9 of the Code civil. Either way, a private individual may not film the public highway or a neighbour's property, a point the CNIL states directly.

Defamation and reputation in France

Defamation in France is a press-law offence rather than an ordinary civil claim. The Loi du 29 juillet 1881 separates diffamation, which alleges a specific fact damaging to a person's honour or reputation, from injure, which is an insulting expression that alleges no fact at all. That distinction determines both the offence and the procedure.

The dominant practical feature is the deadline. An action must be brought within 3 months of first publication, and for online content the clock generally runs from the first posting rather than from each subsequent view. The procedure is also strictly formal: the complaint must identify the offending words precisely and state the provision relied on.

France and EU data protection

French data protection runs on two instruments at once. The GDPR applies directly across the European Union, and the Loi du 6 janvier 1978 supplies the national rules that sit alongside it. The CNIL is the French supervisory authority: it receives complaints, investigates, and can impose administrative fines, but it does not award compensation to individuals, which requires a civil court.

Guides by topic

Every guide below sets out the governing code article, the current figures, and the deadline that applies.

Recording and evidence

Privacy and surveillance

Defamation

Employment

Family

Inheritance and wills

Driving and road offences

Tenant rights

Consumer and debt

Criminal law and records

Neighbour and property disputes

Where to go next

Start from the topic, then check the code article the guide cites. Legifrance carries the consolidated text of every code and statute, and Service-Public.fr carries the government's own explanation of how a procedure works in practice. Where a figure is set by decret or revised each year, such as a fine, a tax allowance or a legal-aid threshold, confirm the current number on the official page before relying on it.

Disclaimer

This hub presents general legal information about the law of France, verified on 19 July 2026. It is not a consultation juridique and does not create a lawyer-client relationship. French law changes frequently by decret and by annual indexation, and how it applies depends on your specific circumstances. For advice on your situation, consult an avocat, a notaire or another qualified French legal professional, or contact a point-justice.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is French law the same everywhere in France?

For the topics covered on this site, yes. France is a unitary state, so employment, family, tenancy, succession, road-traffic and press law are set nationally rather than by region. Two narrow exceptions exist: Alsace-Moselle retains some local rules of historical origin, and the overseas territories can have adapted regimes. Neither creates the kind of state-by-state divergence familiar from the United States.

Does France use case law like the United States or the United Kingdom?

Not as the primary source. The rule normally lives in a numbered code article, and a French judgment does not formally bind later courts the way a precedent does in a common-law system. Case law still matters a great deal in practice: a decision of the Cour de cassation can change how an article is applied nationwide, as it did on 22 December 2023 when the Assemblee pleniere reversed the rule excluding secretly obtained evidence from civil proceedings.

What is the difference between an avocat and a notaire?

An avocat advises clients and represents them in court. A notaire is a public officer who authenticates deeds and handles succession, gifts, marriage contracts and property transfers. Some matters require a notaire rather than an avocat, and a divorce by mutual consent needs both: one avocat for each spouse, plus a notaire to receive the agreement.

How do I read a French legal citation such as Article L1237-11?

The letter tells you the source. L means the article comes from legislation passed by Parliament, R means it comes from a regulation or decret, and D marks certain other decrets. The number that follows locates the article within the code. Article L1237-11 of the Code du travail, for example, is the legislative provision that creates the rupture conventionnelle.

Can you record a conversation in France?

Recording a private conversation without the consent of the speakers is an offence under Article 226-1 of the Code penal, punishable by up to 1 year and 45,000 euros. The analysis differs when you are a participant in the conversation, and separately from whether a recording can be used as evidence, which changed significantly in December 2023. Our France recording laws guide covers both questions.

Which official French sources should I check?

Legifrance publishes the consolidated text of every code, statute and decret, together with case law. Service-Public.fr publishes the government plain-language explainers for individuals. Beyond those, the CNIL covers data protection, Securite Routiere covers road rules, and Justice.fr covers courts, legal aid and the child-support scale.

Sources and References

Legifrance (consolidated French codes, statutes and case law)(legifrance.gouv.fr).gov
Service-Public.fr (French government explainers for individuals)(service-public.gouv.fr).gov
Article 226-1, Code penal (recording of private words without consent)(legifrance.gouv.fr).gov
Article 29, Loi du 29 juillet 1881 (diffamation and injure)(legifrance.gouv.fr).gov
Conseil constitutionnel, decision no. 2026-1204/1205 QPC of 12 June 2026 (Article 65-2 of the 1881 Law declared unconstitutional)(conseil-constitutionnel.fr).gov
Cour de cassation, Assemblee pleniere, 22 December 2023, no. 20-20.648 (unfairly obtained evidence in civil proceedings)(legifrance.gouv.fr).gov
Article L234-1, Code de la route (alcohol at the wheel)(legifrance.gouv.fr).gov
Article L413-1, Code de la route (excessive speed as a delit)(legifrance.gouv.fr).gov
CNIL, videosurveillance and videoprotection at home(cnil.fr).gov
Securite Routiere (French road safety authority)(securite-routiere.gouv.fr).gov
Article 9, Code civil (right to respect for private life)(legifrance.gouv.fr).gov
Service-Public.fr, excessive speed reclassified as a delit (decret of 22 December 2025)(service-public.gouv.fr).gov